September 25, 2012

With the final flight of the space shuttle program across the United States last week I thought it would be a good time to revisit this retro snack that actually predated the space shuttle.

These were a big part of my childhood, even if they didn’t play a big part in the actual space program; a brief look at the NASA website did not reveal any use of Space Food Sticks by actual astronauts but apparently the Pilbury Company in America did invent them for consumption in space (although they did also show an advertisement where the astronaut opens a hole in his mask to insert a space food stick – an act that would negate the need for the mask – so who knows).

Sampling a Space Food Stick has revealed that they have retained the exact flavour they had 30 or more years ago, not unlike a cake mix but with a chewy consistency. They were always pitched as something different to chocolate bars or other confectionery and even now they are found amongst the supposed energy and muesli bars and coffee than other junky snacks.

How nutritious are they? Who cares. like all of these they can’t compete with real healthy alternatives like fruit, but they never were supposed to. They taste great, are chewy and come in easy to manage packaging. But I have two problems:

1. They are much smaller now. I know, I have also grown, and it could be argued it’s like visiting a kindergarten urinal and discovering how small they are (I promise I don’t do this too often), but I swear these are much smaller. The exterior packaging remains the same size but then you open a much smaller individual wrapper (now plastic, not foil), then an even smaller ‘pair’ (see below) of space food sticks. It is like the most disappointing Babushka Doll ever.

2. The two sticks inside each wrapper are near impossible to separate. They are worse than Scotch Finger Biscuits. I think, and I should preface this by saying I haven’t really thought much about this, that the dividing line between the two bars is too shallow.

September 4, 2012

Nougat covered by chocolate and coconut. Yes or no?

The Summer Roll has been around for decades, but I am still not quite sure what makes this summery. Perhaps it’s the coconut that has a tropical feel, but Summer Roll is the classic example of some market research that indicated that ‘Autumnal Log’ would move less units.

Nothing wrong with the ingredients, so long as you like Nougat, Chocolate and Coconut, but there are combinations that work (beer, burger, chips), and those that don’t (ice cream, bacon and whiskey). Summer Roll is just one of those that doesn’t work. Controversial call I know, but this blog isn’t afraid to take on the big issues like this.

August 12, 2012

As the London Olympics draw to a close and viewers around the world wonder why the songs we have already heard in the Closing Ceremony are being repeated, it is time to talk up the final Eurovision-Olympic tally – the most realistic reflection of Olympic quality across nations ever devised.

There has been a flurry of medals in the last few days with boxing and wrestling finals raising the question as to whether there are too many weight divisions (why celebrate being lighter than other competitors). Similarly, is a 100 metre sprint really anything more than half a 200 metre sprint? Such arbitrary delineations seem an odd way to distinguish quality.

Since my last post, Australia has made its way up into the top 10 in the traditional medal tally, and only climbs 4 more places to 6th in the Eurovision-Olympic tally. So do we need such a revised tally that grades performance in a manner more closely linked to the difference in the scores, times and actual, well, performance? Hell yes. Until this takes hold, we will always have journalists and other commentators viewing Silver as a failure. Until we have the same journalists quizzed as to why they didn’t win a Walkley Award (“so how would you have written that article differently if you could go back and re-do it”) there is an awful inequity here.

So, please find the final charts for the Olympics. And campaign for this to be the way for medal tallies to be compiled in the future!

August 5, 2012

The 2012 Olympics has seen Australian media struggling. While catering to our parochial need to focus on any Australian athletes, regardless of how they perform, they clearly were banking on a lot more gold stories on which to focus, leading to cring-inducing moments where they ask the second best swimmer or rowers on Earth “what went wrong?”

One of the reasons the Australian media struggles with trying to sound positive about Silver medals is the effect they have on the ‘all important medal count’ in which countries receive a rank based purely on the number of gold, with secondary rankings for silver and bronze only when needed to differentiate between countries with the same number of gold.

This is an outdated system in a world where kids can get ribbons for coming eighth in a race at school. It also significantly exaggerates the difference in performance between athletes and teams who come in first compared to those who come in second, or for that matter third or anywhere in the top eight.

Its time for it to change.

Perhaps the next most important competitive event, after the Olympics, and maybe world cups in various sports, is Eurovision. For those unfamiliar, various European and quasi-European nations send their most flamboyant performers to sing at least part of a power ballad on stage amid a dance and lighting extravaganza. Then, every participating country collects votes from their population of viewers, which can only be for other countries. These are tallied up and then ranked in the top ten, with ten through to third receiving 1 to 8 points, then 10 points for second place and 12 for first. It makes for nail biting finales.

So how would the medal tally look if we adopted a similar system, taking the top eight place getters for each event so far in the London 2012 Olympics?

Let’s weight Gold 12 points, Silver 10, Bronze 8 points, then 5 to 1 for places fourth through to eighth (or for reaching the quarter finals) and see what happens.

Well for a start, the top national place getters don’t change that much, with no change in the order for the US, China and Great Britain. But after that everything changes. Most importantly, is for Australia, with us rocketing up to 5th place, with New Zealand a respectable 13th.

Also, the list of high-performing countries grows to 79. The chart and table below show this in detail, with the chart also showing the weighted mix between the various final places for each country.

Rank

Country

Gold

Silver

Bronze

4th to 8th

Weighted Total

1

United States

288

130

120

159

697

2

China

264

140

96

90

590

3

Great Britain

156

70

64

109

399

4

Russia

36

130

72

93

331

5

Australia

12

120

48

116

296

6

Germany

60

90

48

89

287

7

Japan

24

90

96

55

265

8

France

96

50

56

59

261

9

Italy

60

50

24

68

202

10

Korea

108

30

40

24

202

11

Canada

12

30

48

43

133

12

Netherlands

36

10

32

45

123

13

New Zealand

36

0

32

36

104

14

Ukraine

24

0

32

37

93

15

Romania

0

40

24

22

86

16

Poland

24

10

8

40

82

17

Hungary

24

10

16

30

80

18

Belarus

12

20

16

28

76

19

Denmark

12

20

8

36

76

20

Cuba

24

20

16

15

75

21

Brazil

12

10

32

16

70

22

North Korea

48

0

8

10

66

23

Kazakhstan

60

0

0

6

66

24

South Africa

36

10

0

17

63

25

Czech Republic

12

20

8

20

60

26

Spain

0

20

8

32

60

27

Mexico

0

30

8

17

55

28

Sweden

0

20

0

27

47

29

Colombia

0

20

8

10

38

30

Slovakia

0

10

24

3

37

31

Ethiopia

12

0

8

15

35

32

Serbia

0

10

8

17

35

33

Slovenia

12

0

16

4

32

34

India

0

10

8

13

31

35

Indonesia

0

10

8

11

29

36

Croatia

12

10

0

6

28

37

Thailand

0

10

0

16

26

38

Jamaica

12

0

8

5

25

39

Moldova

0

0

24

0

24

40

Greece

0

0

16

7

23

41

Egypt

0

10

0

12

22

42

Kenya

0

10

8

4

22

43

Belgium

0

10

8

3

21

44

Norway

0

10

8

3

21

45

Venezuela

12

0

0

9

21

46

Lithuania

12

0

0

8

20

47

Taiwan

0

10

0

10

20

48

Mongolia

0

10

8

0

18

49

Turkey

0

0

0

17

17

50

Azerbaijan

0

0

8

8

16

51

Iran

0

0

8

7

15

52

Georgia

12

0

0

2

14

53

Uzbekistan

0

0

8

4

12

54

Guatemala

0

10

0

0

10

55

Tunisia

0

0

8

2

10

56

Hong Kong

0

0

8

1

9

57

Singapore

0

0

8

1

9

58

Argentina

0

0

0

8

8

59

Bulgaria

0

0

0

8

8

60

Qatar

0

0

8

0

8

61

Austria

0

0

0

7

7

62

Switzerland

0

0

0

7

7

63

Ireland

0

0

0

6

6

64

Portugal

0

0

0

6

6

65

Vietnam

0

0

0

6

6

66

Eritrea

0

0

0

5

5

67

Estonia

0

0

0

5

5

68

Kuwait

0

0

0

5

5

69

Malaysia

0

0

0

5

5

70

San Marino

0

0

0

5

5

71

Trinidad and Tobago

0

0

0

5

5

72

Bahrain

0

0

0

3

3

73

Turkmenistan

0

0

0

3

3

74

Ivory Coast

0

0

0

2

2

75

Israel

0

0

0

2

2

76

Nigeria

0

0

0

2

2

77

Bahamas

0

0

0

1

1

78

Fiji

0

0

0

1

1

79

Finland

0

0

0

1

1

Chart showing weighted points for top 8 places for each country so far for the London Olympics

I would like to advocate the adoption of this system, perhaps with a little tweaking of the weighting if necessary. It is a much more accurate reflection of the performance of athletes from each country. It recognises the part luck plays, as much as training and focus, between first, second and third, or even fourth and eighth places. It removes some of the insane pressure media, and indeed the nations behind them, place on athletes as though they owe us all gold.